Kinnock knockers blamed

The hostile press barrage directed at Neil Kinnock during his nine years as leader of the Labour party may have helped determine the final outcome of the 1992 general election, argued James Thomas, a research student at the University of Wales, Swansea.

He emphasised that he was not arguing that it accounted for Labour's overall defeat. "The Conservatives won by 7.6 per cent, so the causes of Labour's defeat are certainly more complex than that. But given the number of seats the Conservatives retained by very narrow margins, only a few votes would have to have shifted to deprive them of their overall majority and introduce a very different period of politics to the one we have experienced in the last four years."

He argued that Mr Kinnock's public blaming of the tabloids after the election was unprecedented from a party leader in recent years, as was its echoing in comments by Margaret Thatcher and Conservative treasurer Alistair MacAlpine, and the Sun's famous claim that "It Was The Sun Wot Won It".

"This was followed by the hilarious sight of editors and proprietors falling over themselves to declare their impotence. If their papers have so little effect, you have to ask why they bothered acting as they had over the previous nine years," said Mr Thomas.

He argued that the impact of press coverage was not only seen in the possible effects on voter attitude chronicled by pollsters and Guardian journalist Martin Linton in his study of the subject, but also: "Fear of press attacks made policy presentation cautious and defensive, while Kinnock's own confidence and that of other leaders in him were undermined."

But he noted that criticisms were not totally unfounded.

"Kinnock was the subject of poisonous vilification. But his verbosity, emotionalism and poor parliamentary performances were not invented. The important thing about the attacks is that they were credible and drew on existing doubts."